Chaos Vector

by Megan E O'Keefe

  “I got a flask,” Nox said. “Empty.”

  “Perfect,” Sanda said.

  “This really isn’t the way to—”

  “Dr. Liao, I respect your concern, I do, but this station is dying and in less than an hour you won’t have anything to take a sample of.”

  Her expression hardened and she held one trembling hand out to Nox. “The flask, please.” He passed it over. She craned her head up to the ceiling. “But how am I to reach it?”

  “Easy,” Nox said. He kicked the back of her mag boots, deactivating them, grabbed the back of her neck by the coat and crouched down, then swung her upward with all his strength.

  Sanda watched the woman rocket toward the ceiling, screaming all the way, then collide with the cables exactly where she needed to be.

  “Was that necessary?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Probably not.”

  To her credit, Liao got herself oriented and dug in her pocket for a pen stylus then, leaning away in case the goo was under high pressure, pierced the tubing. A silver-violet curl extruded from the puncture, helped along by whatever systems were keeping the pipes moving. Liao put the flask up to the puncture, careful not to touch anything.

  “Empty flask, huh?” Sanda asked, watching Liao work.

  “Was full once.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “You don’t want the answer to that question.”

  “As long as you can shoot straight.”

  “Got it,” Liao called down as she screwed the cap onto the flask and tucked it, carefully, into the pocket she’d taken the stylus from. She squinted and looked around. “Uh, how do I get down?”

  “Put your feet on the ceiling and kick,” Nox said.

  She closed her eyes, mouthed a prayer to something, and did as Nox asked. A little harder than was necessary.

  “Shit.” Nox slung his rifle over his shoulder and lunged forward, grabbing the doctor before she face-planted into the floor. “It’s air you’re pushing through, woman, not water or honey or, I don’t know, cooling fluid.”

  Liao laughed nervously as she twisted around and clicked her mag boots back on. “I haven’t spent much time in low-g.”

  “No shit.”

  A grinding, shuddering noise filled the echoing space of the warehouse. Sanda grimaced and hooked a thumb at Liao, indicating she should get back to the shuttle. She didn’t need to be told twice. Sanda flipped her visor down again, bringing up the HUD.

  Not good. Breathability levels were drifting toward the red, and she didn’t need access to the station’s emergency map to know half the joints in the place were held together with little more than hope and a prayer.

  “Knuth, get your ass down here.”

  “Uh,” he said.

  She snapped her head toward Nox and he took the hint, flipping his visor down.

  “What’s the delay?” she asked.

  “That grinding noise you heard was probably us.”

  Sanda closed her eyes and counted backward from five. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “No. I mean, I’ve got Novak carrying Sarai here, but we don’t have any new injuries.”

  “Right. I’m coming to get you.”

  “Greeve,” Nox said, opening a private channel so that Knuth wouldn’t hear him. “We’re down to fifteen percent breathability and falling hard. If they’re not right on the other side of that door, they’re already dead.”

  “My recycler’s good for another few hours, I can share it out if need be. Get to the shuttle and hold them down, make sure the little fuckers don’t get spooked and take off without us.”

  “What if I get spooked?”

  “You’re not the spooking type, are you?”

  He didn’t answer that, just shook his head exaggeratedly so that she would see, then turned around and clanged his way back to the shuttle. Alone, her palms began to sweat. But that’s what the suit was for, the smart materials working to wick away moisture. Yay for technology.

  She glanced at the elevator door. When it worked, anyway.

  CHAPTER 33

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  WHERE’S GRIPPY WHEN YOU NEED HIM

  Sanda forced the doors to the elevator shaft open and peered upward. Red lights cast the narrow chamber in the murky-bloody light the warehouse had been in, but this time there wasn’t a suspiciously helpful voice telling her what to do.

  Figured. Luckily the elevator had been designed to be maintenanced, and though she didn’t see any repair bots at the ready, there was a narrow channel along the wall big enough for one to squeeze through without getting caught by the elevator if it sped past while the bot was working.

  Being wider through the hips and shoulders than the average repair bot, Sanda took a moment to wish Grippy was here, then wedged herself in with her back against the wall and pulled herself toward the stalled elevator. At least they weren’t under gravity. Dios, her side hurt.

  “I see you,” she said.

  A piece of ductwork had protruded from the wall and caught the descending elevator. It was now wedged between the cab and the wall, crumpled like an accordion. She could in theory pry the piece free, but that looked like a real quick way to get her fingers smashed off. She checked the atmo level outside: 5 percent and falling.

  “There’s an access panel on the bottom,” Sanda said. “Can you get it open?”

  “Hold on.”

  Huffing and puffing and cursing came across the comm, but the panel didn’t move.

  “It’s stuck,” Knuth said. “Maybe if we forced the doors—”

  “Then you’d be facing the wall.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

  “Knuth. You’re my engineer.”

  “I’m… not good under stress.”

  She sighed. “Please make sure the stop button is engaged. I’m about to stick my head out and I’d really like to keep it.”

  “Pressed,” Knuth said.

  Expecting nothing less than steely death from above, Sanda eased herself out of the maintenance canal and twisted around to get a better look at the hatch door. A piece of the broken duct had wedged itself into the opening mechanism, because of course it had.

  “I’m coming out to force the hatch. Don’t fucking touch anything.”

  “Understood.”

  She pushed off from the wall, angling herself at the hatch, and landed right next to it. That was the easy part. She told herself the brakes were engaged, and even if they weren’t, the damn thing was stuck and the fact that it couldn’t come crashing down was the entire reason she was here in the first place.

  Still, she eyed the cabling system as if it were a viper coiled to strike.

  In a stroke of luck that was very much not in line with her current state of affairs, the piece of duct was caught only in the hinges, not rammed so deep she’d need tools to dig it out. She pulled it free and flicked it away. It bounced off the shaft wall and drifted back toward her, floating by her boot, mocking her.

  “Clear,” she said, ignoring the shard, and flipped the hatch open.

  Knuth bent his head over the hatch and gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Civs first,” she said, “this tin can is bleeding air.”

  Knuth turned away and Sanda pushed to the side, opening her comm to Nox. “Got them, coming down now.”

  “Good, I was starting to consider drinking this purple stuff.”

  “If you do, let Liao perform your autopsy.”

  The hatch birthed Dal, his too-clean mag boots kicking feebly in the empty air as he struggled for purchase. Sanda sighed. They could float here all day—if it wasn’t for the air and the rapidly dissolving ship—but the human instinct to be frightened by heights was sometimes overwhelming, even in those who spent their time on stations.

  She grabbed his ankle and pulled, making him let go of the hatch. He panicked for a second, going stiff all over, then saw her floating there, holding onto his boot, and blushed.

  “Don’t mag until yo
u hit the bottom,” she said through the external speakers on her helmet, and put one arm against the bottom of the elevator before giving him a gentle shove. He let out a squeak of surprise, but was safely on his way down the shaft.

  “Next,” she said over comm.

  Novak’s boot poked through, and she resisted giving him the same treatment only because he was carrying Sarai. He climbed through quickly and efficiently, mag boots off and one arm looped around the body of the wounded woman to keep her from getting away from him. He was about to push off, angling himself down, when he caught sight of her and hesitated.

  “You should really get in the maintenance channel.”

  “You should really get the fuck on with things,” she said, and grabbed his ankle, giving him a yank to speed things up. “Move it, Knuth.”

  Knuth wriggled through the hatch and, without so much as a hello, shoved off the bottom of the elevator and went rocketing down to the bottom, leaving her alone. Jerk.

  Sanda looked at the way down the shaft, then at the maintenance channel, and made a snap decision. She’d rather be out faster, than out safer. While the dropping air wouldn’t bother her, the longer they dicked around with the elevator, the longer the civilians risked hypoxia. She’d seen the horrors of hypoxia in a trained spy, and didn’t want to see that stupid-dreamy state set into these people who stood no chance of regaining their faculties in time.

  Okay, fine, mostly she didn’t want to carry them all back. Low-g or not, she was tired and already trembling from the efforts of the day.

  Sanda heel-kicked off her mag boots so they wouldn’t be attracted to the walls and shoved herself down. For a moment, it was liberating to be floating free in low-g. The elevator began to groan. At first the stuttered hiss of misaligned belts slapping against their mechanisms echoed, then the deep crunch of bending metal.

  Novak stuck his head back into the shaft, eyes huge. “Get out!”

  “Move!” she snapped, and didn’t bother to look to see if he followed orders. She twisted so that her path would angle her onto the floor on the other side of the open elevator shaft door, then yanked her blaster free and fired at the bottom of the elevator. Newton’s laws took over from there.

  The ground hit. Pain exploded through her hips and slammed into her back. She swallowed a curse and tucked, trying to redirect her momentum into a roll to clear the shaft but she’d been too slow.

  Someone grabbed the back of her suit and yanked. The elevator screamed by, metal shrieking, to the lower levels. The thin air, disturbed by its passing, gusted scraps of metal and grit toward them.

  “I hit the stop button, I swear,” Knuth said shakily through the speakers. He offered her a hand, and she took it.

  “I believe you. Elevators don’t fall in zero-g.” Sanda staggered to her feet, heart hammering. The foot part of her prosthetic crumpled as she tried to put weight on it, bits of broken metal rattling in the casing of her suit and boot. Needles of pain shot through her lower back. She grimaced and stood still, trying to find her balance. “Someone decided to make a point.”

  Her gaze tracked to the cameras embedded in the walls, the ceiling. Knuth followed her glance, but it was Novak who said, “Marya or Jules?”

  Sanda shook her head. “Neither.”

  “Station malfunction, then,” Knuth said.

  “No. Speculate later, move now.”

  She tried to take a step but her mag boot didn’t move, the broken ankle joint lacking the requisite force to make it deactivate long enough to lift so she could walk. She closed her eyes, cursed a few gods and stars and everyone she knew in positions of authority. Working the boots with one foot was nigh impossible.

  “I’ve got a malfunction here,” she said over open comm. “Going to disconnect from mag.”

  “Your prosthetic—” Novak said, cut himself off, and turned his face away to hide the expression. “I’ve got a spare arm.”

  “You keep an eye on Sarai.”

  Dal extended her an elbow. “This I can help with.”

  She disconnected the mag boots and hooked her arm in his. She hated being reliant on anyone, but her only other option that came with any speed was jetting the lifepack and she didn’t know how long that would last—or if she’d need the pack soon.

  Novak glanced over his shoulder at her, worry pinching his narrow face. What kind of overblown hero did he think he was? This wasn’t a CamCast video where he could rush into the hall waving a gun and get the bad guys to stand down. It sure as shit wasn’t a damsel-in-distress situation, and his habit of trying to intervene was starting to grate.

  Maybe he was one of those weirdo fans of hers. One of those people who’d seen her through the public lens her brother had painted and decided she was a hero worth worshipping. The thought gave her chills. Fans weren’t something she was ready to take responsibility for, though it seemed the most likely scenario. It’d explain how he knew she wore a prosthetic, anyway.

  Crackling speared through her helmet speakers.

  Arden’s voice: “I’ve got control of the hangar door. Pack up and come home.”

  “Affirmative,” she said.

  Before she boarded the shuttle, she turned around and gave the cameras of the station one firm, decisive middle finger.

  CHAPTER 34

  PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543

  EVERYTHING BREAKS

  Jules ran faster than possible down the myriad halls of Janus Station, telling herself that running away was her only option. Trying to take Nox with her would have only slowed her down. There was no time to explain things, and she still needed Rainier’s help to wake Lolla.

  Nox would make it. He had to. This was the mantra she repeated to herself, over and over again, as the walls around her groaned and her wristpad flashed warnings and signals and cries for help from the station itself and all the fake fleeties on board.

  The station was breaking apart. It was all breaking apart.

  But they had come for her. Impossibly, Arden and Nox had gotten Major Greeve to loan them a gunship and her person to come track Jules down, to save her. Even as her heart broke apart with the station, that small truth buoyed her. Made her steps come faster, ascension-agent or no.

  Marya screeched at her over her wristpad, demanding to know what was happening. Jules had lost track of her after Sanda and her hit squad had taken down Davis and the others. Marya could figure it out for herself. Jules’s only responsibility was to Lolla.

  She’d never put the coffin back, and if anyone had noticed it there, they’d said nothing. She thanked whatever instinct had given her that paranoia and flung up the cockpit lid, crawling inside while alarms blared.

  A cheery AI voice greeted her, bright and kind, which felt like scraping steel wool over her eardrums right about now. Jules dialed in navigation instructions that amounted to “evade and get the fuck away from here” and strapped in.

  The shuttle trembled, a low vibration jarring her molars together. It flashed a low-power warning at her, but Jules swiped it away. What the fuck was she supposed to do about that? Hang around and recharge while the station tore itself apart? Goddamn Rainier and her self-destruct. What was she thinking? The research was there. Many of her duplicates were there. Rainier kept some nanites off-site, but was it worth it to her to destroy a station to take out Major Greeve?

  Jules twisted to put a hand on the coffin, bracing it with inhuman strength. Inertia foam lined the back of the cabin, but the shuttle jerked and rattled as it released itself from the dock and dove aggressively through the narrow funnel-tip of the station.

  The ship spun, slamming her into the foam seat. She squeezed her fingers against the plex of Lolla’s coffin until her knuckles cracked, desperately trying to keep it stable.

  The frantic spin eased, lights on the dash winking green at her instead of the bloody red-orange-yellow mélange they had been. Jules took a long, shaky breath to prove to herself she could still breathe and followed it up with a frantic burst of laughter.


  “Shuttle,” she said to the ship’s AI, “show me Janus Station.”

  “Happy to help,” the chirpy voice said.

  The viewscreen filled with smudges of grey and white and silver against a curtain of black. Jules frowned, leaning closer, but the splatters of color made little sense to her.

  “Are your cameras damaged?” she asked the shuttle.

  “Everything’s in tip-top shape.”

  Jules scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. Those weren’t globs and splatters of color. They were chunks. Massive pieces of the station, twisted and ruined, drifting away on whatever course their destructive energies had set them. Jules licked her lips. Her rat maze, reduced to rubble. Lolla’s hope. Nox…

  “Shuttle, are we damaged?” she asked, flipping through a series of diagnostics.

  “The shuttle received a minor graze. Flight trajectory was temporarily altered, but we have recovered. I can no longer recommend your flight path, however.”

  “What? Why? I didn’t even program anything specific.” Had she already fucked up how the shuttle functioned?

  “I lack the required battery power to move in that direction, making it incongruous with survival.”

  “How long can you fly? I need to get to Atrux.” She didn’t know why, not exactly, but she had a burning need to see that planet again. To go home.

  “One hour.”

  Fuck. That wasn’t enough time to get anywhere near the gate, let alone the planet, and she wasn’t even sure she could grease her way through the gate once she got there.

  Rainier may not have outright turned on her when she triggered the self-destruct, but Jules lacked the resources to bribe her way through on her own.

  “Is the ship that last docked with Janus Station still in the area?”

  “The Thorn is leaving.”

  “Good. They can’t leave if they didn’t survive. Send—send them a tightbeam. Ask for a chat with Nox and Arden.”

  “I do not possess the requisite transponder code for tightbeam communication with the Thorn. If you could enter the number now—”

  “I don’t have it.” Her hands coiled into fists. “Fine, fuck it, send a widebeam, paint up the area with a signal that a shuttle needs help.”